Measure Social Media Influence Better With Twitalyzer

Social media analytics are about to get serious with Twitalyzer, a popular new tool for tracking true Twitter influence. Twitalyzer is a comprehensive, premium dashboard designed for Twitter users, and especially brands and businesses, who need a better look at their use of Twitter and beyond just a single “influence” score. Twitalyzer promises “serious analytics for social business”.

Twitalyzer was started by Eric Peterson, a veteran of measuring digital interactions with thirteen years of experience measuring channels for globally recognized brands such as Best Buy and Home Depot. When a friend asked him to take a look at Twitter, Peterson realized that brands can’t successfully use Twitter unless they can measure responses. Finding other tools like Twinfluence and Twitergrader unsatisfactory, he started an early iteration of what would become Twitalyzer.

Twitalyzer offers the ability for anyone to see a Twitter user’s “impact” score, profile, type, and location at Twitalyzer.com. This “impact” score should not be confused with your own “influence” score that can only be calculated by signing up for a Twitalyzer subscription. The “impact” score is a combination of the number of followers a user has, the number of unique references and citations of the user in Twitter, the frequency at which the user is uniquely retweeted, the frequency at which the user is uniquely retweeting other people, and the relative frequency at which the user posts updates. The “influence” score, however, is the likelihood that a Twitter user will either A) retweet something the user has written or B) reference the user.

Peterson said it’s “unfortunate that this [influence] score gets talked about because it’s not that interesting.” Recently, manymajornews outlets picked up on a top ten list of the “most influential people on Twitter” using Twitalyzer’s “Influence Index.” This score, however, doesn’t have much meaning and alone can’t help brands and business measure success on Twitter.

To do this, Twitalyzer offers a dashboard with a panel rich with other metrics, reach analytics, comparisons and context, people and groups, tweets and tags, activity and trends, and analytics and clicks relative to your use of Twitter. Twitalyzer can help businesses measure their social media influence better through reports created on engagement, velocity (the rate at which you tweet), potential reach, effective reach, associated tags and topics, most influential friends and members of your network, weekly comparisons, and more. Twitalyzer also features your PeerIndex and Klout, scores too – much to my surprise, as you would think Twitalyzer would be competing with, not integrating, Klout.

Peterson explains that Twitalyzer isn’t trying to better than Klout – just different. “We really like Klout for what it is, and we really like the PeerIndex guys, too,” he said. Peterson explained that awhile back the CEO of Klout, Joe Fernandez, said Klout wanted to be the Nielsen of the social web. Twitalzyer, however, wanted to be more like “the Google Analytics of Twitter – not even social media. Just Twitter”. And while Twitalyzer is very different from Klout, or even PeerIndex, it’s also very different from other social media analytics tools like Radian6. Peterson notes that “aside from HootSuite’s Social Analytics, we’re really different from other social media analytics. They’re looking at conversations, and we’re simply focused on how business and brands use Twitter.”

And that’s the target market for Twitalyzer – businesses and brands, and maybe social media experts, too, looking to make a name for themselves to improve their own use of Twitter. Peterson explained that “It’s silly to measure yourself unless you’re a business trying to do something.” Consumers can still use Twitalyzer to find like-minded people, but the real value in Twitalyzer is using the metrics to analyze the most effective use of your time on Twitter, and what relationships are and are not working.

Twitalzyer offers monthly subscriptions for individuals, business subscriptions that allow a business to keep track of multiple twitter profiles, and agency profiles which offer competitive analysis and access to APIs. To find out more about Twitalyzer, visit Twitalyzer.com, check out the Twitalyzer blog, or find Twitalyzer on Twitter at @Twitalyzer.